NRA, GOA Confusion

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Pardon a temporary diversion from the topic.

Excellent post, but here I disagree:
If it's a tyranny we face, it will come from a powerful, organized entity with all the weapons and other means to protect itself. It seems to me that armed private citizens will have little chance of besting that entity.
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All the military might in the world doesn't change the fact that conflicts inevitably end up being door-to-door, street-to-street affairs. If this wasn't true, we wouldn't still be struggling in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is perhaps even more true on our own soil, where the government would be extremely reluctant to turn WMD on it's own infrastructure, let alone it's own people, posse comitatus notwithstanding.

The 300 million guns in private hands in this country include more military-style semi-automatic rifles than are held by any two of the largest armies in the world. I consider that a quite sufficient deterrent to tyranny, so much so, that I think as long as we have a meaningful 2nd Amendment, we will never need to use it for that purpose. That's the irony, as long as we have 2A protection, we won't need it. Take it away, or weaken it enough, and the need for it becomes great.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
 
Ask yourself this:

Who would you rather have as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or Dick Durbin?

On a whole host of issues there may not be much difference but when it comes to the RKBA Harry Reid > Dick Durbin.
 
It's really very simple. You're going to find yourself disagreeing with every person or organization who is not you.
You may even find yourself disagreeing with yourself from time to time.;)
The question is, do they do more harm than good? If they do, try to support their activities. If not, do not.

NRA, yes.

GOA, I'm not so sure. They're a bit too far on the "shrieky side". I don't necessarily think that they help the cause.
 
There is one simple fact to remember about the NRA. It's mandate is not about health care, evangelicalism, welfare, immigration policy, or anything else that is not related to guns. The NRA's political mandate is to protect gun rights, and it has to be a one-issue organization. Of course, that one issue has a lot of facets, including campaign advertising laws, potential terrorist lists that include Iraq War veterans, and a lot of back door ways to strip us of gun rights, but their one purpose, politically, is gun rights and nothing else. If somebody wants to be involved in other causes, then there are groups out there that advocate for those causes. Just be aware that some of those groups may be actively working against the NRA's agenda at the same time that they are supporting your other cause.
 
I was in a lather about the NRA's latest hijinks, conning an exemption to the bill being concocted by liberals to gut the Citizens United ruling ... TexasFats kind of put it in a different light for me; he may be right that the NRA, as THE pro-gun organization in the U.S., has to focus on gun rights, often at the expense of other issues. Reid may be a gun rights guy, but he's so horrible in every other way that it's hard to justify supporting him. But if you look at in from the one-issue side, maybe the NRA is doing the right thing for gun rights in general, even if having Harry around for another term isn't in the best interests of anything else you can think of.
 
Does Harry Reid retaining his position bolster his allies that are anti-gun to such a degree that it is a net loss for pro-gun? IDK, and truthfully neither does anyone else as it can't be measured, but is anyone thinking about it?
 
Does Harry Reid retaining his position bolster his allies that are anti-gun to such a degree that it is a net loss for pro-gun?
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I don't see how having a pro-RKBA Senate Majority Leader is going to be a bad thing for us - especially since he is basically the only guy in the Democratic leadership who can stop or slow gun control singlehandedly.

There are only two ways there is going to be a Senate Majority Leader who is pro-RKBA - one way is if Reid wins. The other way is if the Democrats lose control of the Senate. The other way is a longshot statistically speaking.

I don't see how Reid being elected is going to bolster his allies that are anti-gun to a degree that it is a net loss. Do you have an example that might illustrate what you were thinking of?
 
Having progun people of different political ilk is a good thing. Engaging in Byzantine reasoning why this isn't true is a bane of the gun world and probably indicative of folks who want to be conservative more than supporting gun rights. The only true gun rights folks are conservative is the subtext - nah. Baloney.

It's my club - nyah, nyah. If politicians, most of whom have no true convictions, see that issue X works for them - they go for it.

Recall the past administration was for the AWB but engaged in moral sophistry about their support for it. It worked with soccer moms.

Just have people support the RKBA and worry about your other political crap in another dimension. Meaning that increasing RKBA support across parties is the best plan as compared to an ideological loyalty that decreases the base that would support the RKBA.
 
I don't see how Reid being elected is going to bolster his allies that are anti-gun to a degree that it is a net loss. Do you have an example that might illustrate what you were thinking of?
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To simply demonstrate my point the following hypothetical examples:
Lets say Harry Reid loses and b/c of it some of the healthcare reforms/repeals are pushed through that Republicans want and everyone is all 'Hurrah the Republicans saved us from the elitist Democratic healthcare socialist mumbo jumbo' or 'The Democrats sold us out and didn't stick with these reforms and all the important stuff was gutted anyways'. The following election Democrats take a beating and the Senate is more pro-gun.
Alternatively the Reid is in power, healthcare reforms continue as already passed, everyone is either saying 'Stupid Republicans are just like the Democrats' OR 'yay, I get free healthcare.' Democrats do better in the next election and the senate is more anti-gun.

Of course, coming from Ohio I realize there are many pro-gun Democrats like Strickland who are good to us, but some generalizations in order to illustrate the point.
 
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Lets say Harry Reid loses and b/c of it some of the healthcare reforms/repeals are pushed through that Republicans want
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The Republicans have to pick up 10 Senate seats in the November election to be able to even start talking repeal of any law (and they'll still need to Obama to go along with that margin) - to get 10, this means the Republicans must win every toss-up race, every Republican leaning race, and at least one upset in a district that leans Democrat. That is extremely unlikely to happen.

So the Democrats are likely to remain in control of the Senate regardless. The question is which Democrat is going to be Senate Majority Leader.
 
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